Security systems are well known. Such systems typically involve a secured area protected by one or more sensors. The secured area may include some form of physical barrier (e.g., a wall, a fence, etc.) provided around the secured area with one or more portals (e.g., doors, windows, etc.) that allow entry into or egress from the secure area by authorized persons. The sensors may be provided in the form of limit switches that are arranged to detect opening of the portals by intruders. The sensors may also be provided in the form of motion detectors that detect motion within a portion of the secured area.
The sensors may be coupled to a local alarm panel. In the event of detection of an intruder, the alarm panel may activate a local audible alarm. The alarm panel may also send an alarm message to a central monitoring station.
The sensors may be coupled to the alarm panel wirelessly. In this case, each of the sensors (and alarm panel) is equipped with a separate radio frequency transceiver. Such transceiver usually operates at a low-power level that does not require an FCC license.
In most cases, the wireless exchange between transceivers is encrypted to avoid subversion of the security system. Usually, this requires the use of secret coding schemes. However, this makes the set-up of such wireless sensors time consuming and expensive. Accordingly, a need exists for better methods of setting up such systems.